1. Field of the Invention
The disclosures discussed herein relate to a communication apparatus, a communication method, and a communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wired communications between communication apparatuses are generally performed via Ethernet (registered trademark) whereas wireless communications between communication apparatuses are generally performed via a wireless LAN known as 3G/LTE long term evolution) or WiFi. Advances in recent technologies have encouraged frequent transmissions of large sized data, and the widespread use of communication apparatuses results in an increase in transmissions of significant quantities of data. Thus, significant congestion may be observed in communication networks.
The wireless communications are becoming popular along with the widespread use of wireless technologies such as wireless mobile communication apparatuses. However, a communication apparatus having the communication capability of LTE and 4 GHz/5 GHz dual band WiFi may exhibit inefficient communication operations. For example, although the communication apparatus has a WiFi communication environment capable of performing wireless communications at close range, the communication apparatus may use LTE configured to perform wireless communications at long range. Similarly, the communication apparatuses may use a congested 2.4 GHz band despite the fact that the 5 GHz band is available between the communication apparatuses. The above communication operations may be inefficient in terms of performance and radio utilization efficiency.
Recently, the concept called “software-defined networking” (SDN) has attracted attention. The SDN refines network operations with software statements, and its technical components include network virtualization and OpenFlow switching. The network virtualization is a technology to virtually separate a logical network configuration from a physical network configuration by combining physical network apparatuses, virtual network components, and protocol technologies to achieve a flexible network configuration unrestricted by a physical configuration.
The OpenFlow switching is a technology to identify communications as an end-to-end flow to separate a control plane and a data plane. The control plane serves as a part configured to analyze data, determine forwarding destinations, and determine controls, and the data plane serves as a part configured to physically transmit packets. In the OpenFlow switching technology, an OpenFlow controller (OFC) that manages a process of the control plane transmits forwarding rule instructions, and an OpenFlow switch (OFS) that manages a process of the data plane forwards packets in accordance with the forwarding rule instructions. More specifically, the OFS forwards packets in accordance with a flow table held by the OFC configured to add data or rewrite data. The above-described technique may enable the OpenFlow switching technology to serve as a tool for controlling the network virtualization.
The related art SDN technologies are rapidly becoming popular for use in Web/Cloud data centers or communication carrier backbones (large capacity communication networks) that are susceptible to concentration of communication load. The optimal control of the SDN technologies may improve efficiency in communication traffic, and may achieve the reduction in cost or energy.
Patent Document 1 proposes a technology that employs the above-described OpenFlow switching technology. The proposed technology selects a desired one of virtual switches connected to different physical network interface (NIC) devices, and uses the selected virtual switch for transmitting packets. In this technology, a physical network interface device that will not fail may be selected without allowing a user to set routing control information.
The optimization of communications by the SDN is increasingly applied in the Web/Cloud data centers or the like that are susceptible to concentration of communication loads. However, little optimization of communications by the SDN is achieved in terminal side apparatuses that communicate with the Web/Cloud data centers or the like despite the fact that virtual network components and the like similar to those used in the Web/Cloud data centers are available to the terminal side apparatuses. In wireless communications increasingly used by terminals, which anticipate a rapid increase in transmissions of large amounts of packet communications such as transmissions of high resolution moving video data or the like, unoptimized communications of the terminals may adversely affect communications of other peripheral terminals due to frequency sharing wireless communication properties. This may eventually degrade or damage communication performance of the terminals.
The technology disclosed in Patent Document 1 is configured to merely perform switching operations to switch the physical NIC in accordance with transmission destinations, and does not flexibly perform optimal controls in accordance with capacities frequency channels or communication paths of both terminals. Thus, the technology disclosed in Patent Document 1 is rot configured to handle degradation of or damage to the communication performance of the terminals.